Our family moved from Australia to Berlin in January 2005 for a 4 year contract, which we extended for a bit longer. Here are our adventures of our time in Berlin, as well as day to day things that happen!

Wednesday, 30 November 2005

Got this one completed just in the nick of time....30th November! I am enjoying doing these Lizzie Kate designs. They do not take long to do, and I am enjoying doing some smaller designs, something I haven't really done before! On to the January ones now...to be finished before Xmas....we will see. I still need to knit a couple of scarves for birthday presents, and something for teachers for Xmas presents. I am not sure how I will go for time??

Sunday, 27 November 2005

Yippee, this one has been a long term project, and finally I put the last stitches in last night! Whata relief. The backstitching on this was a killer, and in the end I gave up looking at the chart, and just made it up as I went along....I don't think you can tell! Next on the list of kits are 2 floral charts that I won in an English Cross stitch magazine. Not really my usual type of scene, but I both kits have no backstitching, so they should stitch up quickly....then it is on to the Teresa Wentzler Peacock Tapestry...that will keep me busy for quite sometime!

Saturday, 26 November 2005

What a great day...and what an expensive day! Each year the PTA hold a craft fair at the school for Year 1 and 2. They kids come and buy tickets for different crafts to do. They can paint, stamp, colour, etc...and make all the mess at school, and not have to do it at home! Perfect! This boys took a liking to the ceramic placemats. You draw a picture on them with special textas, then take it home and bake in a slow oven for 90 minutes. Then the colour is set. Cameron did one "I leov Mum" with a giraffe. Alexander did 3, qantas plane, Mallorca scene and a space scene.

Thursday, 24 November 2005

Excellent! Our first snow of the year! We woke up to lots of it, and it was so exciting to see! After the boys were ready for school, we stood out on the balcony catching snowflakes and making snowballs to throw off the balcony! Everyone seems to be surprised that there is snow so early, but the weather forecast has been saying snow for a few weeks. Until now we have only seen a little bit, it melts as soon as it hits the ground. Some people were not so pleased with it as us. Most people change their winter tyres over on the 1st of December, so people were caught out! Here is a picture of our street (our fence is on the left side with the terracotta bricks and dark wooden fence rails, and the second photo is at our local park up the street!

Sunday, 20 November 2005

Up early and starting to walk the rest of the way to Poland. At about 9.30 it began to snow, that was great. Although the weather warmed up and then it just drizzled on and off all day! By the time we got to Poland we were looking rather damp!We made it...about 4pm. We showed our passports to the border attendants, (both German and Polish attendants gave my Aussie passport a really good look, and it took longer to process than everyone else's, the look on their face said "What on earth is she doing here!"). Then we stepped into Poland! Right on the border is a large market. Interesting, but I didn't buy anything. If you smoke you would be able to buy cartons of cigarettes at every second stall....and DVD's and CD's at every other stall. Surely they were copies with Polish subtitles! Lots of clothing stalls and that kind of reminded me of the Victorian Markets. A couple of bottles of Buffalo Grass Vodka were purchased for the trip home on the train! That helped warm us up on our trip back...some of us were warmer than others! We got back to Berlin around 9pm, and I think we all slept well that night! Overall a great trip, feeling sore today, but really glad I decided to do it! Pheobe is thinking about a trip from Hamburg to Ostsee in January/February....I will think about it, although it will be damn cold at that time of the year! You can see how quickly it gets dark..it was about 4.10pm! Thanks Pheobe, that was terrific!!!!

Saturday, 19 November 2005

Sounds crazy I know....but when Pheobe suggested a trip to Poland, I thought it would be a great idea...then I heard "walking", and thought twice! But in the end I decided to do it....a weekend away and what a great time we had! There were 9 of us, mums and dads from school. It was a fast pace walk, as we needed to hit our nightly spot by about 4pm, as it gets dark here early at this time of the year, and we were walking through the woods with no lamp posts! The woods are all marked with walking tracks, and it was easy to follow! Our first night we got to Cottbus, and stayed the night in a Youth hostel! It was like being a 16 year old again, with a lot of giggling in our hostel room....some of it alcohol induced! Here are 8 of us (Tom took the photo) Faye, Christoph, Me, Elli, Sonia, Phoebe, Luke and Giselle in Cottbus...1/2 way!

Friday, 18 November 2005

Out to buy a new hair colour, as the orange/red colour is fading away. I took Alexander with me. "It's my turn to chose mum" Yes, I guess that was right! Cameron chose the last one. Alexander chose this bright purple/red colour! What the hell, it is only hair, and it washes out after 40 washes!I coloured it a couple of days before our walk to Poland. The day after I did it, I picked the boys up from school. The kids in both boys classes that know me, their jaws dropped as they saw my hair "What happened to your hair Mrs Owens?" says Julian....Mrs Jackson quickly replies..."Julian, it is not nice to comment like that when a lady has her hair done!" Very funny! Actually I quite like this colour! Cameron's friend, Bradley, wants to chose the colour for his mum's hair..Sonia says "No Way". So I told Bradley he can choose my next colour...he is thinking about blue/black! Interesting! Well it's a bit of fun! Here is a picture of my hair on our walk to Poland.

Saturday, 5 November 2005

What a difference a week makes. A week in Mallorca, we come back to Berlin and most of the leaves have fallen off the trees. It looks great! From our bedroom window we can see our neighbours garden. It is covered in a bed of coloured leaves. It looks great! Everywhere you go in Berlin there are leaves everywhere! The boys are enjoying walking through them and hearing them crunch under their feet! The council have poeple to sweep the leaves up in piles, then a truck comes the following few days to collect them. I wonder why the council doesn't collect them earlier....you see lots of kids jumping inthe neat piles of leaves and throwing them at each other....then the men just have to come around and do it all again! Great fun for the kids!!!!

Wednesday, 2 November 2005

We had a great time in Mallorca. Phil and I feel refreshed, and have enjoyed our family holiday. Phil is off to Australia in a few weeks, (without us) so it was nice to spend a week together! Now to plan the next holiday together. London after Xmas and then skiing in February....just have to work out where! Here is a picture of us all at one of the Roman ruins sites!

Tuesday, 1 November 2005

We wanted to do a bit of touring of Mallorca, instead of just seeing the inside of the hotel we were staying at. Phil braved the roads of Mallorca, driving on the wrong side of the road! With a very limited map, we trekked off....The lady at the car rental shop told us not to worry if we ran into anything. She says the staff do more damage than the tourists! Well, she hasn't met our children......after 1/2 hour of winding roads, Cameron threw up everywhere! Thank goodness we took a couple of large bottles of water with us (although Evian water is really too good to be used to wipe away vomit!) Other than that, we had a good look around the island. Some of the homes are built right on the edge of the road. Also large stone walls line some of the roads, and there is no where to stop. Sometimes I felt I could stick my hand out the window and touch these homes and walls! This was a common site outside our car as we were driving aroundthe island!

On the North Coast of Mallorca are some Roman Ruins. They are only small, but amazing to see that they still exist, and haven't been bulldozed to make way for something else! Also a really interesting castle to see, complete with a moat (although all dried up now). But great to see the infrastructure of how a castle was built! The windows in the outside walls were great, from the outside they were only long narrow slots. From the inside there was enough space for a person to sit in there and shoot arrows from. Obviously it was harder for theie "enemies" to get their arrows through this narrow slot. Mallorca was a haven for pirates with so many small harbours to hide their stash in!